The birthplace of Montréal
Significant scientific discoveries about Fort Ville-Marie
1
The birthplace of Montréal
Significant scientific discoveries about Fort Ville-Marie
“History and archaeology are living sciences, where nothing ever stands still. A scrap of text, a piece of a wall or
a tiny artifact are enough to confirm a hypothesis or, to the contrary, open up new perspectives and bring figures
from the past to life.” 1
Francine Lelièvre, Executive Director of Pointe-à-Callière,
the Montréal Museum of Archaeology and History
Archaeological research allows us to add to what we know about the French Regime, a period for which there
is little in the way of written evidence. History has left us few clues about Fort Ville-Marie. In 1725, Sister
Marie Morin, who kept records for Hôtel-Dieu and was one of the few people to mention the existence of
the Fort, said that it was located on the part of the point that was ceded in 1688 to Governor Louis-Hector
de Callière. She wrote:
“The place where the holy altar was located and where the first Mass was said was later used to build Monsieur
de Maisonneuve’s renowned house in the fort. It lasted until 82 or 83, and was torn down, although it was
made only of wood. It was located where the house of Monsieur de Callière, our governor today, now stands.”
Callière’s point is located where a little river, now disappeared, joined the St. Lawrence. Once forgotten, it is
now re-emerging from the shadows. Digs in 1989 revealed remains of over three centuries of history on the
site. During the construction of the Museum, archaeologists unearthed Ville-Marie’s first Catholic cemetery
(1643), where both French settlers and Natives were laid to rest. The remains of the cemetery confirm the
location of Montréal’s birthplace.
Place D’Youville, 2002
In 1998, Pointe-à-Callière took an interest in a building next to the Museum – a building that had never had
a basement, which is very rare in the historic district. Exploratory probes confirmed the site’s potential. Since
2002, the research carried out by Pointe-à-Callière’s Archaeological Field School has allowed us to identify
with certainty the remains of Fort Ville-Marie. Only one-third of the site has been excavated to date, in fact,
and there are still many hypotheses to be tested and discoveries to come.
1
Morazain, Jeanne. Louis-Hector de Callière. Man of War, Man of Peace. Montréal 1684… The Traces of an Era and a Château, Montréal, Pointe-à-Callière,
Montréal Museum of Archaeology and History. Montréal: Presses Inter Universitaires, 2001. p.7.
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The birth of a city
This site was known for thousands of years
before the French arrived in 1642. It was
the last possible halt before Sault SaintLouis (the Lachine rapids), and so was used
as a stopping place and a landing for transferring goods.
In 1603, Samuel de Champlain came to New France to study the possibility of establishing a colony here. He sailed up the St. Lawrence as far as the Lachine rapids.
Champlain returned to the site in 1611, to build a fur-trading post exactly on
the point. He and his crew spent a few weeks clearing a site that he named “Place
Royale,” dug two gardens and planted seed that grew well, confirming that the soil
was fertile. They also made bricks with clay they found there, and apparently even
used the bricks to build a small wall.
Although the site had definite potential, the plans never materialized, because of
a lack of French manpower and the Iroquois threat. But Natives and European
traders continued to meet and do business on the Pointe à Callière site for many
more years.
An assiduous mapmaker, Samuel de Champlain (c. 1567-1635), explorer and French colonial
administrator, carefully noted on the map the area he had cleared.
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The birth of a city
Occupancy of the site before
Maisonneuve’s arrival
Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, Jeanne Mance and some forty
French colonists stepped ashore on the point on May 17, 1642. They had
come mainly to found a settlement and create a new Christian society
where French and Natives would live side by side. Maisonneuve considered
the location easy to defend, and had Fort Ville-Marie built there.
Jeanne-Mance was born in France in 1606 and devoted her life to
helping the poor and the sick. She came to Canada in 1641, helped
found Montréal and keep it alive, and opened the Hôtel-Dieu de
Montréal, which she ran until her death in 1673.
Source: An imagined portrait of Jeanne Mance, 1882, by an unknown artist
Library and Archives Canada, C-146129
Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve (1612-1676) was dispatched
by the Société de Notre-Dame to found a missionary colony on the
island of Montréal. As the first Governor of the island of Montréal,
for twenty years he was responsible for the most vulnerable French
outpost in Canada. It would be a difficult life, full of constant battles.
In 1663, financial difficulties obliged the Société de Notre-Dame to
cede the island to the Sulpicians. Maisonneuve’s career in Montréal
was cut short, and little is known about the circumstances surrounding his departure. He was recalled to France in 1665, retired to Paris
and died there in 1676.
Source: Portrait of Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve, first Governor of Montréal, 1882.
Centre d’archives de Montréal. Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, Fonds
Famille Bourassa, P266, S4, P47
Oblong bead
(1600 to 1630)
The discovery of glass beads made in France between
1600 and 1630 confirms that the site was inhabited
before Maisonneuve arrived. Archaeologists think
that these beads may have been used as currency by
French and Native traders. This means that the site
may well have been occupied when Champlain and
traders from Quebec City visited in 1613 and 1633.
Discovery of two masonry structures
predating Fort Ville-Marie
Two masonry structures dating to before those associated with Fort Ville-Marie have been unearthed.
The first is a row of drystone and the second, the
remains of three clay-mortared foundations. They
differ from the structures of Fort Ville-Marie in their
orientation and their depth. It is possible that they
date back to the first phases of the fort’s construction or even earlier, to the time between Champlain’s
stopovers around 1611 and the arrival of the first
Montrealers in 1642.
2006 digs
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A “foolish venture”
First Catholic cemetery
“I will go there [ …] even if all the trees on the island were to turn into as many Iroquois.”
Remark attributed to Maisonneuve by Dollier de Casson,
Superior of the Sulpicians, the seigneurs of Montréal.
A small Catholic cemetery was created outside Fort
Ville-Marie, and French settlers and their Native
allies were laid to rest there until 1654. This HuronWendat pipe, bear tooth and pottery were found in
one of the graves.
Despite warnings by the authorities, who derided Maisonneuve and Mance’s plans as
a “foolish venture,” they commenced their missionary work. The co-founders became
the godmother and godfather of Tessouat and his wife, both of them Algonquin.
The vast majority of Natives rejected the new faith, however. The Iroquois nations,
for their part, were most displeased to see the French allying themselves with their
Huron and Algonquin enemies and encroaching on their territory. Starting in 1643,
Iroquois raids began claming victims.
Tessouat “le Borgne de l’Île,” baptized Paul, was
the chief of the Algonquin tribe on Île aux Allumettes.
He was one of the important political leaders involved
in the birth of New France.
Since the name “Tessouat”, and the title “Le Borgne
de l’Île” were “resuscitated” among the chiefs of
the Allumette Island tribe, it is extremely difficult to
determine which chief is actually referred to in the
early documents.
The remains of the cemetery are displayed at
Pointe-à-Callière, the Montréal Museum
of Archaeology and History.
Source: Ville de Montréal collection. Photo: Normand Rajotte
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The construction of Fort Ville-Marie
The construction of Fort Ville-Marie began in 1642, and by the
time the palisade was complete in 1646, it was an impressive sight.
The fortifications comprised four bastions, likely of stone, and enclosed homes for the
indentured settlers, a chapel, a hospital and a main wooden building with room for
60 people, protected by a cannon.
The main building, known as the “château,” was Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve’s
seigniorial residence. It was his home, and his office for his duties as civil head of the
settlement, military governor and judge, as well as where he received Native ambassadors. Jeanne Mance made plans to found a hospital with the support of a rich benefactor.
She would act as the “storekeeper” of the new colony.
The land was cleared and pit sawyers, carpenters and labourers set to work building homes and
the palisade around Fort Ville-Marie. Illustration © Francis Back
The settlers lived inside the fort, ate together, and went back and forth to work together.
They raised a few animals and grew wheat, which they ground in the mill built on the
point in 1648. The first Montrealers fished, hunted and gathered berries. They imported
fruit and dried fish, oil, wine, spices and salt.
A crawlspace
Pieces of wood sunk in a pit, 2005 digs
This large rectangular pit corresponds to the crawlspace of a building that has been determined to be
approximately 3.5 metres wide and over 7 metres
long, though the exact length remains unknown.
The pit likely corresponds to a crawlspace under
the floor of a building linked to the baker’s oven,
located 3 metres farther west.
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The construction of Fort Ville-Marie
A bread oven
The hospital was initially located within the fort. Then Maisonneuve granted the first concession outside the
fortifications to Jeanne Mance so that she could build her Hôtel-Dieu. Work began on the hospital in 1645. In
1651, 40 arpents were granted to the settlers as common land. But the Iroquois threat made living outside the
fort so risky that everyone – including Jeanne Mance and her patients – had to come back inside the walls.
Ten years after it was founded, the settlement’s population had barely grown, what with the low birth rate, the
high infant mortality rate and casualties from Iroquois attacks. Jeanne Mance took the money that was to have
been spent on the hospital and used it to recruit another 130 people from France. In 1653, with this new influx
of settlers, the struggling colony was saved ... and not a moment too soon.
The archaeologists discovered a fence that
separated two areas of occupancy. One of these
areas was littered with bits of ash and bones
from about thirty different animal species. The
other held the remains of what may have been
a bread oven and residue from its use.
A smithy
The 2006 digs produced a major find: a masonry wall, part of Fort
Ville-Marie, was unearthed. Several clues confirmed that it dates
back to the mid-17th century. First of all, the archaeologists observed
that the masonry was held together with clay rather than lime mortar, as was the presumed baker’s oven discovered at the same level.
Finally, its orientation in relation to geographic north corresponds
with that of several of Fort Ville-Marie’s structures.
The hypothesis that it was a structure serving an artisanal function
was confirmed when a deposit of ferrous slag, mineral coal and ash
was unearthed on its south side. The exact function of this structure remains unclear. Was it a low blast furnace or a forge? A blast
furnace is used to extract iron from ore or refine it, while a forge is
used to heat iron in order to shape it into useful objects.
A smithy, 2007 digs. Photo: Alain Vandal, Pointe-à-Callière
Wall of a small masonry structure, possibly the
base of a bread oven, 2005 digs
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A new vocation for Montréal
Other work was done at the fort. In 1658, Maisonneuve signed a contract with
Jacques Archambault, to have him dig “a well in Fort Ville-Marie in the middle of
the Court or parade ground.”
De Maisonneuve’s well
Under the walls shown in this photo, part of a
large, deep circular pit was found. The walls are
associated with buildings erected after the well
was abandoned.
2004 digs
But the centre of activities gradually shifted toward Hôtel-Dieu. A second mill was built on the Saint-Louis
hillside, farther east. On the other side of the Little St. Pierre River, there were now some forty homes. In 1663,
the Sulpicians became the seigneurs of Montréal, taking over from Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve, who
returned to France in 1665.
The missionary dreams of the first Montrealers had given way to the lure of money to be made in furs. Montréal soon became the centre of the fur trade. In 1665, the authorities sent the Carignan-Salières Regiment
there as reinforcements. In 1701, the Great Peace of Montréal was signed with the Iroquois, opening up new
trade routes.
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A new vocation for Montréal
Fort Ville-Marie is abandoned
This was the heyday of the annual
fur fair held in Montréal.
Reid, G.A., Fur traders at Montreal, 1916, National Archives of Canada (ANC / C-011014)
At first trading was done in people’s home, but traders soon set up stalls between Saint-Paul and the Little
St. Pierre River, west of the marketplace. Natives – some 900 of them in 1672 – camped on the point, not
far from the seigneurs’ gardens.
More and more voyageurs, coureurs des bois and missionaries were exploring the regions upriver from
Montréal. As the new territory opened up, part of the fur trade shifted toward the Great Lakes. Fewer and
fewer Natives came to Montréal, and the annual fur fair became less popular from 1680 to 1685.
In 1672, François Dollier de Casson, the Superior of the Sulpicians in Montréal, drafted Montréal’s first
urban plan. The town was growing and becoming the hub of the French empire in North America.
Montréal’s birthplace on the point of land was abandoned. Ice and spring floodwater carried off the bastions of Fort Ville-Marie. Maisonneuve’s old residence fell into ruins. Dollier de Casson noted, in fact, that
people were not taking such good care of the original cradle of Montréal. In 1683, the Sulpicians, seigneurs
of the island, ordered the final demolition of the old seigniorial residence.
Recent digs have enabled us to better understand
what function the site played when the fort was
abandoned, between 1674 and 1688. The material
culture associated with this transitional phase is
different in that it includes many Native artifacts:
potsherds, pipes with removable stems, projectile
points cut from copper, and bones from fish and
small game have all been brought to light from
this period.
We know that the annual fur fair that took place
in the 1670s and 1680s was held nearby. Natives
may have returned to the site after the fort was
abandoned, before Governor Callière built his
residence there in 1688.
Disc-shaped shell bead
Photo: Luc Bouvrette.com
credits
These pages were produced by Pointe-à-Callière, the Montréal Museum of Archaeology and History, based on the archaeological digs
conducted since 2002 on the site of Fort Ville-Marie and Callière’s residence, in Old Montréal.
The site is located in the area classified as «Montréal’s birthplace» by the Quebec Department of Culture and Communications
(MCCQ) in 1999.
These digs are the fruit of a valuable partnership between Pointe-à-Callière and the Anthropology Department of the Université de
Montréal, which trains archaeology students. Annual internships on the site are offered for future archaeologists and allow them
to learn about methods and techniques used on a real dig, with data interpretation and publication of results. They also add to our
understanding of Montréal’s past.
Financial support for research
Quebec’s Ministère de la Culture, des Communications et de la Condition féminine, the Ville de Montréal, under the Agreement on the
cultural development of Montréal, the Université de Montréal and the Pointe-à-Callière Foundation.
Project Director at Pointe-à-Callière
Sophie Limoges, Director - Conservation and Education
Project Manager at Pointe-à-Callière
Alain Vandal, Conservation Technician and Logistics Co-ordinator
Numbering artifacts in the laboratory, 2007 digs
Photo: Alain Vandal, Pointe-à-Callière
Scientific committee
Brad Loewen: Assistant Professor, Université de Montréal
Christian Bélanger: Archaeologist, Université de Montréal
Jean-Guy Brossard: Assistant Director - Archaeology, Pointe-à-Callière (2002-2005)
Louise Pothier: Project Manager, Pointe-à-Callière
Anne-Marie Balac: Archaeologist with the Ministère de la Culture, des Communications et de la Condition féminine
François Bélanger: Archaeologist with the Ville de Montréal
Sophie Limoges, Director - Conservation and Education
Alain Vandal, Conservation Technician and Logistics Co-ordinator
Graphic design: Maristella.ca
Translation: Terry Knowles, Pamela Ireland
Photos and illustrations: Luc Bouvrette (www.lucbouvrette.com), Frédéric Back, Normand Rajotte, Alain Vandal, Pointe-à-Callière,
Université de Montréal
The contents of the Pointe-à-Callière Archaeological Field School Website are protected by international copyright laws. The texts and
images on this site may not be used, in whole or in part, for publication without the prior written permission of Pointe-à-Callière.